


five times a confession

by harinezumi_kun



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harinezumi_kun/pseuds/harinezumi_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>four times a rejection + one time a happy end</p>
            </blockquote>





	five times a confession

**One**

“Sho-kun. Please go out with me!”

It is November. Aiba is sixteen and Sho is seventeen. 

Aiba is bent at a ninety degree angle, bowed deep and staring at his chunky tennis shoes. He’s sure Sho is looking at him in complete shock, but he is too embarrassed to raise his head and see it. Despite the chill in their empty corner of the rehearsal studio, Aiba can feel sweat beading on his temples.

“I,” Sho begins, stuttering, “that is, um. Aiba-kun, I’m flattered, I guess, but I’m not really—”

But before he can finish, Aiba collapses to his hands and knees in relief, with a dramatic: “Oh, thank God!”

Though he is obviously uncomfortable with the situation, Sho starts to kneel down at the sight of Aiba’s distress. He opens and closes his mouth several times, before managing a single, baffled syllable. “…What?”

Aiba gestures frantically for Sho to lean in closer. The other boy does so, hesitantly, until he’s close enough to hear Aiba’s stage whisper.

“Nino dared me to,” Aiba says apologetically. “I told him it was stupid, but then he said I was being a baby, and then he _double_ dared me, so…”

“I…see,” Sho replies, a tentative smile creeping onto his face. He joins Aiba, mimicking his cross-legged position on the floor. “So, let me just get this straight…Nino dared you to…what? Ask me out?”

“Yeah. Well, he dared me to confess to you.” Aiba thinks about this with a growing sense of worry. “Which maybe isn’t the same as ‘asking out’. If he says anything about it, let’s just say I confessed. Or he’ll make me do it again.”

“Sure…” Sho seems to be debating something with himself. “But…why?” he asks finally.

“Why?” Aiba repeats. “’Cause Nino’s a jerk?”

“No, I mean, why did he dare you to do that?”

“’Cause we were playing Truth or Dare,” Aiba says patiently.

“No,” Sho says again, with a little sigh of frustration. “I mean, why would he dare you to confess to _me_?”

“Oh.” Aiba thinks about that. “Well, I don’t know, I guess he just thought it would be funny.” 

Then Aiba notices the way Sho’s eyes keep flicking to the side uncomfortably. 

“Waitasecond! You don’t think it’s because _I_ …that I would, like, want to go out with—no, no, no!” Aiba waves his hands in a desperately dismissive gesture. “No—oh man—no, no! I don’t…I mean, I like _girls_ …”

Sho laughs his loud, infectious “ha-ha-ha”, but there is a definite note of nervous relief in his tone. Aiba joins in, giggling like a hyena. But then their laughter peters out, and they’re left looking anywhere but at each other. After a few moments of awkward silence, Aiba jumps up.

“Well,” he says, “I’m, uh, gonna go. So, yeah. Let’s keep working hard.”

Sho nods. “Right.”

Aiba turns and tries not to run back across the room. He sees Nino smirking at him from a corner, where he and Ohno have had their heads together for several minutes. 

Yes, Aiba decides. Taking the batteries out of Nino’s GameBoy will be a good revenge.

**Two**

“Sho-chan, will _you_ go out with me?”

It is nearing the end of April. Aiba is eighteen and Sho is nineteen.

The older boy just shakes his head sadly. “End of term exams coming up,” he says, and there is a deep weariness in his voice that makes Aiba cringe.

“Come on,” Aiba persists. “Everyone else already turned me down, and you need a break from studying. I know this great little izakaya, right near—”

But Sho is still shaking his head as he hefts his bag—full of school books—and starts towards the door. “I really wish I could, Aiba-chan, really. Maybe another time.”

“But, but,” Aiba struggles for an excuse, an incentive, anything to make Sho change his mind. “What if it was a date?” he blurts out, feeling idiotic before he’s even finished the sentence.

Sho just barks out a laugh. “That’s a definite ‘no’, then.”

And then Sho is out the door with a brief wave, leaving Aiba alone in the dressing room. He flops onto the worn out couch with a petulant sigh.

“Stupid, stupid…Why did you ask him that?” Aiba says aloud. He knows he really needs to kick the habit of talking to himself, but at the moment it just gives him a sort of melodramatic pleasure. “And what was with that laugh, anyway? Like going out on a date with me would be so bad!”

“Actually, I imagine a date with you would be a total disaster,” says a new voice, as Jun re-enters the dressing room. “Forgot my pass case. Who turned you down this time?”

“Everybody,” Aiba answers in his most self-pitying tone. “But Sho-chan was the one who laughed at me.”

“No kidding,” Jun scoffs. “He’s _way_ out of your league, anyway.”

“Matsujun!” Aiba cries indignantly. “That is not nice.”

For the briefest, flickering second, Jun looks apologetic—he still hasn’t quiet decided whether he wants to be the nice funny guy or the aloof sarcastic guy of the group. But as Aiba pretty much has the “nice funny guy” niche filled, Jun’s expression switches back to a sharp smirk almost instantly.

“You’re just mad because it’s true,” he snarks. He finds his missing pass case where it fell onto the floor under his chair.

“Is not!” Aiba says, jumping up from the couch and gathering his things with an excess of violence. “I could totally get a guy like Sho! Not that I want to get a guy—”

“Uh huh,” Jun interjects doubtfully.

“—because I like girls,” Aiba continues, determined, “girls with big boobs and nice butts and long legs!”

Jun pauses at the door and looks back at Aiba with a measuring gaze. “Why does it have to follow that if you like girls you can’t like a guy, too? Just one guy, who’s special to you?”

“Well, that’s—I…” Aiba splutters, still incensed, but unable to come up with a quick answer to Jun’s question. “You shouldn’t make fun of me, Matsujun…”

The younger boy just stares for a moment, then shrugs and walks away. “Have it your way,” he says as he goes.

Aiba is left alone again, staring at the open door in bewilderment. Eventually, he finishes getting his stuff together—a good deal of it was flung across the room during his previous effort—and leaves.

He doesn’t want to think about his conversation with Jun, and tries to forget it, but Jun’s question is like a seed in his brain. Even when Aiba’s not thinking about it, it’s quietly sprouting roots and growing.

**Three**

“So you’re, like…dating?”

It is late September. Aiba is twenty-three and flabbergasted. Nino is twenty-two, seated across from Aiba on the bed in a stuffy hotel in Taipei.

“Yeah, I guess,” Nino answers, trying to sound indifferent while fighting a pleased grin. “I mean, it’s nothing that official, but…”

“But you’re definitely more than friends?”

“That’s one way to put it,” Nino agrees, and his smile takes on a decidedly wicked twist.

For a while, Aiba just stares dumbly at his friend. He shouldn’t be surprised—Nino and Ohno have been all over each other from day one, and they’ve all been joking about how it’s only a matter of time—but somehow he never really thought it would _actually_ happen. That it _could_ actually happen.

“Well,” Nino says abruptly, rising from the bed with a bounce. “I’m outta here.”

“Eh? Where are you going?”

“Oh-chan’s room. Duh.”

Aiba blinks a few times. “But Sho-chan and Matsujun are already in there.”

“They won’t be for long,” Nino says deviously, and before Aiba can protest again, he’s out the door.

After a few more moments of blank staring, Aiba crawls up to the head of the bed and pulls his dog-shaped pillow to his chest. He presses his face into the familiar smell of the brown fabric and wonders why this is unsettling him so much. It’s not like he isn’t happy for his friends, or that he’s uncomfortable with the idea of them being together. It’s almost like…

“I feel like I’m missing out on something, Wan-chan,” Aiba tells his pillow. “Isn’t that weird? What would I be missing out on, anyway? Some kind of kinky threesome? Ew,” and he shudders at the thought.

“Aiba-chan, didn’t you say you were going to stop talking to yourself?”

Sho enters the room, looking groggy and disgruntled. His pajamas are disheveled, as if he was just forcibly ejected from his bed. Which, Aiba thinks, is not unlikely.

“I was talking to my pillow,” Aiba says with a haughty sniff. “Nino really did kick you out, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Sho crosses to the bed and collapses facedown, not bothering with anything as complicated as getting under the blankets or locating a pillow. Aiba watches the other man for a little while, thoughtfully. Sho breathes in and out slowly, ribcage expanding and pressing against his gray tank-top with each inhalation. His face is turned toward Aiba, and he can see the funny way Sho’s eye scrunches up where it’s pressed against the bed, and the way his mouth squishes into a pout.

“Sho-chan,” Aiba says quietly, in case Sho is already asleep, “did you know they’re dating? Nino and Ohno, I mean?”

Sho makes a monosyllabic, gurgled response.

“And you don’t care? It doesn’t bother you?”

Sho stirs himself enough to open his eyes and slide an arm under his head. “No. Why would it?”

Aiba shrugs, avoiding Sho’s gaze in favor of staring at his own feet. Inexplicably, he suddenly wishes they were not so big and clumsy. 

“Does it bother you?” Sho asks, a note of concern in his voice.

“No,” Aiba answers quickly, “no, I just…well, you remember that one time I asked you out? You seemed pretty freaked out that time…”

Sho just smiles, and snorts out a little laugh. “I remember. And I kind of had different reasons for being freaked out. You do remember that it was Nino who dared you to confess to me, right?”

Aiba nods, frowning.

“Did you ever figure out why Nino dared you to do that?”

Aiba shakes his head, and his frown deepens.

“Well,” Sho continues, pulling his legs up a little and curling into a loose crescent, “Nino knew that _I_ liked boys. And he thought that I liked you.”

For a moment, Aiba feels as if the bed has dropped out from underneath him. He stares at Sho wide-eyed.

“ _Do_ you like me?” he breathes.

“I like you just fine, Aiba-chan,” Sho says, patting Aiba’s knee in a highly platonic way.

“Do you want to go out with me?” Aiba tries again.

He’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but Aiba thinks he sees the tiniest flicker of hesitation in Sho’s eyes before he answers.

“No, no, don’t worry, I haven’t been pining after you all these years or anything, Nino was just…well, Nino just _thinks_ he knows everything, but it’s not actually true.”

“Oh,” Aiba says, feeling oddly disappointed. And then his mind rewinds back to the first and—he realizes belatedly—ultimately more important part of Sho’s statement. “You’re _gay_??”

At this, Sho laughs again, a surprised little titter. “Yeah. I thought everyone had that figured out by now.”

“But, but, you…you’re so…”

“Butch?” Sho offers, with a sarcastic twist to his lips.

“Well, no, but…I don’t know, you seem so _normal_ —” Aiba bites off the end of his sentence too late, realizing how that sounds. “I mean, that is, I don’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” Sho says, “I didn’t mean to hide it from you. I guess it’s a bit of a shock at first.” 

“Yeah,” Aiba replies weakly. He’s feeling a bit like his whole world view was thrown out of whack in the course of about fifteen minutes. And apparently, he thinks as his eyelids start to droop, his instinctive reaction to this is to sleep.

“C’mon, Aiba-chan, let’s go to sleep,” Sho says through a yawn, finally climbing under the covers.

Aiba follows suit, snuggling down facing Sho with the dog pillow crushed to his chest. “What about Matsujun? Wasn’t he sharing a room with you and Leader?”

“Yeah, but he was a lot more stubborn about leaving, seeing as that room is the one with two beds and this one only has one.” Sho is quiet for a moment, and then a mischievous little smirk sneaks onto his face. “Maybe he’s getting some voyeuristic pleasure out of—”

“AS IF,” Jun practically shouts as he storms in. He stomps across the room and looms over the bed menacingly. “Alright, somebody is sleeping on the floor, and it is not going to be me.”

Despite Jun’s dramatic announcement, they all wind up crammed into the single bed, with Sho in the middle and Jun and Aiba on either side. They all shift and turn during the night, and at some point Jun throws an arm across Sho’s face, making the other man groan and roll over. The motion puts him almost flush against Aiba’s back, and at some point his arm slides unconsciously over Aiba’s waist.

Aiba finds that he is the last one awake, unable to sleep for feeling Sho’s gentle breaths against the back of his neck.

**Four**

It is Spring again, a time for drama to unfold under falling cherry blossoms.

Aiba is twenty-five and Sho is twenty-six.

Drama can also unfold under falling pink and blue foam balls and at the top of a rock-climbing wall, Aiba tells himself firmly.

They are the last ones in the dressing room after filming for an episode of VS Arashi. Sho has already changed into his neatly pressed newscaster’s suit, and for some reason Aiba finds that very intimidating. But he makes himself be brave, asks Sho to wait a minute before leaving, and sits him down on the dressing room sofa.

“Sho-chan, I’ve been thinking,” he says, hating how obviously nervous he sounds. “I’ve been thinking about…well, a lot of things, and, um…Well, we’ve been friends for a really long time, and, well…That is, people change, and the way they feel about things changes, and I…”

Aiba swallows and trails off. This shouldn’t be so hard, he tells himself. This is Sho, his Sho-chan who always listens to Aiba’s wild ramblings, and who always has interesting things to talk about and never teases Aiba when he has to ask about a particularly tricky vocabulary word. His wonderful, handsome Sho-chan who made him rethink his whole outlook on his own sexuality just for this chance. Aiba straightens his back and takes the plunge.

“The thing is,” he says, perhaps a little too loudly, “I like you. A lot. Please go out with me!”

He throws himself into an awkward half-bow, unable to meet Sho’s eyes. The silence that follows his confession is heavy and uncomfortable.

“Aiba-chan,” Sho says slowly with a sad kind of a sigh, and Aiba’s heart is already sinking, “I…I’m flattered, but…”

Aiba experiences a sickening swoop of déjà-vu, but this time he can’t just laugh it off as a joke. He sits up with a smile that’s more of a grimace. “Ah, right, sorry, never mind, ha ha…”

“No, Aiba, wait,” Sho says, catching the other man by the wrist to keep him from bolting. “Look, it’s not you, okay? It’s just…well, I’m already seeing someone.”

“Oh,” Aiba replies miserably, still struggling to smile. His embarrassment writhes around in his stomach like a thing alive, making him want to vomit and laugh hysterically at the same time.

“It’s someone I knew from university,” Sho continues, apparently compelled to explain his rejection. “We’ve been going out for a while. I didn’t tell anyone because he’s kind of a private person…” 

They sit in silence for a few moments, staring at their hands. Eventually Sho speaks again, his voice almost a whisper.

“I’m really sorry…”

And his tone is so sad, so uncomfortable—Aiba suddenly comes back to himself with a little jerk. He’s being incredibly selfish, he realizes.

“Don’t be sorry, Sho-chan,” he says, managing a fair semblance of his usual chipper self. “I’m just…well, I’ll be fine. Everything will be back to normal tomorrow. Okay?”

Sho meets his eyes hesitantly. There is a turbulent mix of emotions there—Aiba feels his heart clench a little, and ignores it—hesitance, hope, regret, concern. To prove his point, Aiba reaches out to clasp Sho’s shoulder in a show of simple, friendly affection.

“Okay,” Sho says finally.

The atmosphere in the room is still awkward as they leave, but they are able to part with smiles.

By the next day, Aiba has managed to convince himself that everything will be okay. He laughs and jokes and bounces around like he normally does, and pretends not to see the lingering crease between Sho’s eyebrows.

**Five**

It is the very tail end of August. Heat and humidity are thick and breathable in the air.

Aiba is twenty-six and Sho is twenty-seven.

It has been almost exactly ten years since that first uncertain day on a boat in Hawaii. The last few days of concerts have been a whirlwind of movement and emotional overdrive, and Aiba feels so full he could burst and so tired that he’s fallen asleep on his feet more than once.

After the final concert in the National Stadium, Aiba finds himself in a hotel room with Ohno, reminiscing about every fun or wonderful thing the five members of Arashi have ever done together while both of them get slowly teary-eyed without the help of even a single drop of alcohol. They are eventually interrupted by a quiet knock on the door.

Sho comes into the room and, seeing the pair of them sniffling and red-eyed, hesitates by the threshold.

“…What _are_ you doing?” he says finally.

“We were just waiting for someone to invite us out for drinks,” Aiba replies, sounding a good deal more pathetic than he ought to.

Sho’s look of concern melts into a long-suffering smile, and he shakes his head. “If you wanted to go out, why didn’t you just…never mind. Leader,” he says suddenly, “Nino’s looking for you.”

Ohno’s eyebrows go up in surprise, but he rises to go without complaint, and a moment later Sho and Aiba are alone.

“Are we going out drinking?” Aiba asks as Sho crosses the room and takes a seat next to him.

“Maybe later,” Sho says, and Aiba suddenly notices how preoccupied the other man seems.

“Sho-chan? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Well…”

Sho sits with his elbows on his knees, twisting his hands nervously. Aiba watches him, cautiously curious. He’s still caught up in the fuzzy warmth of nostalgia, and feels a sudden compulsion to throw his arms around the older man. With practiced patience, he resists.

“It’s just,” Sho begins finally, “I have something I want to ask you, but I don’t know if I should.”

Aiba’s brows knit in confusion. “You can ask me anything,” he says reassuringly.

Sho smiles at that, but doesn’t continue immediately. For a few moments he organizes his thoughts, then begins slowly and carefully.

“About two weeks ago, I broke up with my boyfriend.”

Aiba’s heart soars, but he forces himself to stay still and quiet. Honestly, he’s rather shocked by the force of his reaction—he had thought, had convinced himself, that he was over this. 

“And at first,” Sho continues, “I was surprised because I realized that I wasn’t that upset. Disappointed, yes, but not heartbroken or anything. And then I figured out why. It was because my heart—” and Sho falters here, a flush of embarrassment spreading over his cheeks, “—my heart already belongs to someone else.”

When Sho looks up to meet his eyes, Aiba is practically vibrating with excitement. _Don’t ruin this, don’t ruin this_ , he chants in his head, and it is sheer willpower that is keeping him in his seat. Something of this must show in his eyes, because Sho smiles softly, and says:

“It’s you.”

And that is the limit of Aiba’s patience. He practically launches himself at Sho, and in an excess of emotion, plants an enthusiastic kiss on his lips.

He pulls away almost immediately with a bashful, “Sorry”. But Sho—while looking a bit shocked and disheveled—is grinning wide, and searching Aiba’s face with an expression that makes the younger man shiver. Before he can back away too far, Sho has wrapped a hand around the back of Aiba’s neck and brought their mouths back together.

Aiba can’t help a little whimper— _this, this, this_ , he thinks, is what he’s been waiting for and so much more than he imagined. Sho’s kiss is slow and deliberate. He slides their lips together and apart until he finds a perfect fit, and then—gently, always waiting for permission—opens his mouth against Aiba’s to deepen the kiss.

It could be minutes or hours later when they pull apart, Aiba’s not sure (and when did he climb into Sho’s lap, anyway?), but there is a sudden, pressing question on his mind.

“Sho-chan, are you asking me out?”

There is a pause, and then Sho throws his head back with an echoing laugh.

“Yes, Aiba-chan, I am asking you out. Will you please go out with me?”

“Yes!” Aiba declares happily, before pressing forward for another kiss that knocks Sho backwards and flat onto the bed.

They don’t get very far, however, before the hotel room door bangs open and Nino saunters in looking vaguely annoyed.

“What the hell, Sho, I wasn’t looking for Leader at all—not that I’m complaining or…” 

He trails off when he catches sight of Sho and Aiba, frozen in their somewhat compromising position on the bed. After a moment of stunned silence, a slow grin creeps onto his face.

“HA!” Nino hollers, and then dashes back out the door. As it swings slowly shut, Sho and Aiba can hear him shouting down the hallway.

“Jun, you owe me twenty bucks!”

**Author's Note:**

> sorta kinda part of the sakuraiba-thon, but not really since this prompt wasn't actually in there anywhere :/ but yes, my first stab at sakuraiba. also:
> 
> 1) so apparently in the rainbow-sparkle land of my fics, no one needs key-cards to get into hotel rooms. LULZ :P  
> 2) i have this pet theory that sho is the gayest one of them all. that, in part, is why this fic was born.  
> 3) my chronology/accuracy concerning real events in this fic is probably all kinds of messed up, but...let's just pretend it's, like, a tiny au or something...


End file.
